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Luke 20:39
ESV Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.”
NIV Some of the teachers of the law responded, 'Well said, teacher!'
NASB Some of the scribes answered and said, 'Teacher, You have spoken well.'
CSB Some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well."
NLT Well said, Teacher!' remarked some of the teachers of religious law who were standing there.
KJV Then certain of the scribes answering said, Master, thou hast well said.

What does Luke 20:39 mean?

It was common for teachers to pontificate, debate, and argue over theological issues on the Temple Mount. During Passover season, tens of thousands of pilgrims would have looked on. Here, the Jewish religious leaders are worried that Jesus will draw these crowds away as He has so many in Galilee. They have been attempting to discredit Him by presenting riddles and rhetorical traps.

The Sadducees are the last to enter the discussion. They want to prove that Jesus' theology about the resurrection of the dead is wrong. They give Jesus a hypothetical situation about a woman who has been widowed seven times and has no children. If people rise from the dead, whose wife would she be (Luke 20:27–33)?

Jesus tells them they don't understand what resurrection is really like. People will live forever; like the angels, they will not be married. In response to their greater disbelief of the resurrection, He points out that hundreds of years after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God told Moses He was still their God. How can the God of life be the God of the dead unless they were brought back to life (Luke 20:34–38)?

The Sadducees have no answer. In fact, the scribes—whether of the Pharisee sect that did believe in the resurrection or of the Sadducee sect—were impressed by Jesus' response. Matthew 22:33 says the crowd was "astonished at his teaching." Mark indicates a scribe who saw Jesus' adept response asked Him about the greatest commandment (Mark 12:28–34); that scribe replied to Jesus' response in a way that demonstrated He was "not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark 12:34). Matthew shows a lawyer of the Pharisees asking the same question as a test (Matthew 22:34–35). From this point on, the religious leaders stop trying to discredit Jesus in front of the crowd (Mark 12:34; Luke 20:40). Their silence allows Jesus to present a riddle of His own and then He warns the disciples—and the crowd surrounding them—to be careful of the religious leaders. If their lives don't reflect a love of God and others, their teaching isn't worth listening to (Luke 20:41–47; Matthew 22:34—23:39; Mark 12:35–40).
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